Russian-born American writer, whose works combined science fiction with
philosophy of laissez-faire capitalism, social
Darwinism, and Nietzschean individualism familiar from the Marvel
Comics. Rand became a highly visible
advocate for the inviolate supremacy of individual rights with
her novels The Fountainhead
(1943) and Atlas Shrugged
(1957). "The genius must have his freedom and his independence," she
once wrote. Rand rejected Communism and fascism and fiercy defended a
system in which economics have to fit man, not the other way round.

"Great men can't be ruled."
(from the Fountainhead)

Ayn Rand was born Alissa Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg, the
daughter of Zinovy Rosenbaum,
a chemist, and his wife Anna, the daughter of a successful tailor. She
witnessed the Russian Revolution
and the social upheaval, during which his father's chemistry shop was
closed by Bolshevik soldiers. In the following he found work only in
a Soviet store. At the age of 21 Rand graduated from the University of
Petrograd in
history with highest honors. After the family's shop was confiscated,
they went to Odessa. In 1926 Rand moved to the United States, and took
her surname from the
typewriter she used, a Remington-Rand.

Rand worked as a junior screenwriter and movie extra for
Hollywood between the years 1926 and 1932. Starting as a filing clerk,
she became an office head in wardrobe department. Rand wrote
screenplays for Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, and
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. One of her scenarios, 'The Skyscraper', based on a
story by Dudley Murphy, told about an architect, named Howard Kane, who
breaks through all obstacles on his mission to complete his monumental
task.

In 1934-35 in New York Rand was a free-lance script reader for
RKO Pictures, then for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. While in Hollywood she met
Frank O'Connor, an actor, whom she married in 1929 and applied for
citizenship as Mrs. Frank O'Connor. Rand's first novel, We The Living came out in 1936,
but her breakthrough work was courtroom play Night of the January 16th (1934),
where the audience was asked to determine the verdict. While collecting
material for The Fountainhed Rand worked without pay as a
typist for Eli Jacques Kahn, and architect in New York City. With Hal
Wallis Productions Rand had a special contract which committed her to
work only six months of each year. During the other six months she
pursued her own writing.

Rand remained in Hollywood until 1949, when she became a
full-time
writer and lecturer. When HUAC (the House Committee on Un-American
Activities) launched in 1947 its investigation on the film industry, it
put on a host of friendly witnessess, whose testimony it knew in
advance. Among those were Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan, Walt Disney, and
Gary Cooper. In the early 1950s Rand moved to New York. She was a
visiting lecturer at Yale Univeristy, New Haven, Connecticut (1960),
Princeton University, New Jersey (1960), Columbia University, New York
(1960, 1962), University of Wisconsin (1961), Johns Hopkins University,
Baltimore (1961), Harvard University, Cambridge (1962), and
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (1962).

"Civilization is the progress
toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public,
ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting
man free from men." (from The Fountainhead)

Rand's best-selling novel The Fountainhead was
adapted into screen in 1949. The romantic tale of an idealistic
architect, Howard Roar, who clashes with the compromises of society,
gained a huge popularity. Many critics consider that the central
character was modelled after Frank Lloyd Wright, whom Rand tried
unsuccessfully interview. During the writing process, Rand became
addicted to Dexamyl, a diet pill, which contained amphetamine.

In 1949 Rand received a letter from a college student named
Natham Blumenthal. Unhappy in California, she moved to New York, where
Blumenthal served as an active memeber of her discussion group, 'The
Class of '43' that met
to critique Rand's works in progress. In 1954 Rand and Blumenthal
(then known as Nathaniel Branden) declared that they had fallen in
love.
Rand's next novel, Atlas Shrugged, was dedicated jointly to
O'Connor and Branden. Rand expected that the philosophy of the tale
would make a great impact on the public discussion but was disappointed
in the cautious reception. In National Review Whittaker
Chambers stated that one could hear the echo of the gas chamber in
Rand's books. Rand's relationship with Branden cooled after he began an
affair with an actress, Patrecia Gullison; they later married. Branden
established an institute to advocate her ideas. Soon its branches had
spread all over the U.S.

Atlas Shrugged, an enormous work, 1 168 pages long,
portrayed
what Rand considered to be the inevitable result of the
unselfish concern for the welfare of others – socialism or anarchy.
This book is mentioned in many American reader surveys as one of the
most influential novels of the 20th century. In the story
the US government becomes increasingly socialist and violates
individual rights and human reason in protecting the public good. John
Galt, Ayn Rand's mouthpiece, and his Objectivist colleagues
retreat to the mountains. Galt claims, that it is irrational to
sacrifice the self for the good of society. As civilization crumbles
they are prepared to return only when they will be able to rebuilt
along the lines of Objectivist philosophy. Galt's Gulch, a capitalist
utopia, is born to promote free enterprise without government controls.

In the 1950s Rand's Objectivist philosophy was especially well
received by college students, who were attracted by her instructions to
heed one's self-interest, and to maxime the superman potential
without social conscience. Rand published her manifestoes in
The Objectivist Newsletter in the early 1960s and became a
permanent guest on television talk shows. In the 1974 she ceased
publishing the Newsletter, but after the collapse of the
Soviet Communism her essays gained a new audience in Moscow. Rand died
on March 6, 1982. Her books have been sold over 20 million copies in
the Unites States, where
they have never been out of print. For decades, Rand has been the favorite philosopher of investment bankers and corporate managers. Among her early devotees and members
of 'The Class of '43' was Alan Greenspan, a noted economist and
Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. He married Leisha Gullison,
whose identical twin Patrecia, a model, had a romance with Braden.

"Rand was passionately patriotic
about her adopted country. There are many things about America, though,
that she never understood, and the pervasiveness of religion in this
country was certainly one of them. She imagined America as she imagined
capitalism, and her success is evidence of the fact that her own
fantasies coincided with those of others – and probably that her own
simplicities met the need of others for one simple, all-embracing
explanation of everything. This makes for a movement, but it doesn't
make for good philosophy or viable politics." (Peter L. Berger, in The New York
Times, July 6, 1986)

Ayn Rand called her philosophy "Objectivism" because it is
based on the premise that reality is an objective absolute. One must
perceive and understand reality to survive. One's highest value should
be one's ability to reason. This also manifested in the way Rand viewed
her own life, not through feelings but through her interest in ideas
and her thinking: "I do not regard any particular day of my childhood
as especially memorable. What I regard as significant are certain
trends and intellectual developments in my childhood, but not single
days or events" (from a letter to Gene Shalit, in Letters of Ayn
Rand, 1995). In the novella Anthem
(1937) Rand studied a future society, where the collective mind have
suppressed individual thoughts. We
the Living reflected Rand's deep antipathy of communist
ideology. The story follows the struggle of a young Russian girl, Kira
Argounova, who wants to live her own life in a society where "man must
live for the state."

For further reading:It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand by J. Tucille (1972);
Who is Ayn Rand? by N. Branden (1977);
The Ayn Rand Companion, ed. by M.R. Gladstein (1984); The
Philosophical Thought of Ayn Rand, ed. by
Douglas J. Den Uyl (1984); The Ayn Rand
Lexicon, ed. by Harry Binswanger (1986);
The Passion of Ayn Rand by B. Branden (1986); Judgment Day
by Nathaniel Branden (1989);
Two Girls, Fat and Thin by Mary Gaitskell (1991, a caricature of Ayn Rand and her
work); Ayn Rand and the World She Made by Anne C. Heller
(2009); Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and
the American Right by Jennifer Burns (2009) - See also: Friedrich
Nietzsche and his concept of the 'Herrenmensch.